Quayle Bids Farewell to the Presidential Race, and, Effectively, an Era of His Career

His voice firm but his eyes glistening, former Vice President Dan Quayle effectively bid farewell today to a national political career that has made him a household name -- and sometimes a household laughing-stock -- for more than a decade, announcing that he would abandon his quest for the Republican Presidential nomination for lack of money and support.

''There's a time to stay and there's a time to fold,'' Mr. Quayle said quietly as his wife, Marilyn, stood beside him at a hotel news conference in his adopted home state here. ''There's a time to know when to leave the stage.''

Mr. Quayle endorsed none of his rivals, but pledged to work for the Republicans' eventual nominee, which he said appeared all but certain to be Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. He took pains to note that at 52, he was hardly over the hill and, referring wryly to Richard M. Nixon's famous premature farewell, said: ''I seriously doubt if this will be my last press conference.''

Still there was an air of poignancy, as Mrs. Quayle seemed to struggle to hold back tears and misty-eyed aides lined the wall of an elegant Frank Lloyd Wright ballroom at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa. It is always possible that Mr. Quayle, who was a Senator from Indiana, could run for lesser office someday, but even longtime aides said his days as a national candidate were effectively over, a casualty of his lingering -- if in their eyes unfair -- reputation as a lightweight.

''It was sort of a sad moment today, though in some ways perhaps an inevitable one,'' said William Kristol, Mr. Quayle's vice-presidential chief of staff and now the editor of The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine. By chance Mr. Kristol watched his old boss's announcement from the Bush campaign headquarters in Austin, Tex., where he had gone to interview the Republican front-runner.

''I think he underestimated how much damage had been done from the vice-presidential years and that he couldn't just sit out a few years and then come back,'' Mr. Kristol said. ''I think if he were on a successful second term as a governor, things would look different.''

In today's news conference, and in a telephone interview afterward, Mr. Quayle expressed no bitterness over the image problems that dogged him from the moment of his debut as George Bush's running mate in 1988, from questions about his National Guard service during the Vietnam War to doubts about his spelling ability when he put an ''e'' on potato before a group of New Jersey school children.

Instead, Mr. Quayle sounded notes of gratitude for the help of his family and friends, blended with frustration at his inability to raise enough money to compete in next year's string of front-loaded primaries.

''Believe me, there's about 15 different ways you could conclude a campaign,'' he said in the interview. ''This would've been No. 16.''

Mr. Quayle said that his New Hampshire campaign chairman, former Gov. John H. Sununu, who was chief of staff in the Bush White House, had convinced him that he had a reasonable shot at winning the primary there, and his own polls showed him gaining, aides said. But even if he won New Hampshire, Mr. Quayle said, he concluded that he could not afford to compete with Mr. Bush in the 18 contests that will occur within 30 days afterward.

''Reality set in,'' Mr. Quayle said, and in discussions over the weekend, he decided that winning the nomination would be ''virtually impossible.''

For months, Mr. Quayle had said he would not go through the exercise of running if he did not think he could win, and so he made his announcement today.

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''Money's a part of it but it's not all of it,'' said Mr. Quayle's poll taker, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, who noted how accelerated the election cycle seems. ''At this point in the fall of 1991, George Stephanopoulos was just making his first acquaintance with Bill and Hillary Clinton. How we judge and select our candidates has changed so significantly'' since then.

''I always say to be nominated as a Republican, you need cash, conservatism, character and chits,'' Ms. Fitzpatrick said. ''But you also need chatter, and this year the emphasis on buzz-building has surpassed so many of these other nuts and bolts.''

At the same time, Mr. Quayle, who had sought to define himself in large measure by his support for traditional family values, was at pains to compete against other candidates, like Steve Forbes and Patrick J. Buchanan, for the support of the party's more conservative voters.

Like former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who with Representative John R. Kasich of Ohio and Senator Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire preceded him in dropping out of the Republican race, Mr. Quayle said he would favor increasing the $1,000 individual limit on Presidential campaign contributions to make it easier to raise money. But he said he opposed any proposals for more taxpayer-financed matching funds for campaigns.

Ms. Fitzpatrick and other aides said Mr. Quayle had also been handicapped by having to run against Governor Bush, whose father had plucked Mr. Quayle from comparative obscurity in the Senate to run for Vice President. She said Mr. Quayle was ''too much of a gentleman to take a chain-saw to the front-runner.''

In the interview, Mr. Quayle also reflected on the challenges of facing the son of his old patron.

''I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be running against George Bush's son,'' he said. ''Things would have been a lot different had that not happened. A lot. It was very awkward. I was very loyal to President Bush and the whole family.''

Today, George W. Bush said of his rival, ''I wish him all the best.''

Since leaving the White House, Mr. Quayle has written books, appeared on the lecture circuit and served on corporate and charitable boards. He said today that he and his wife planned to take time off ''to decompress'' but that it was too early to talk about what he might do next, except that he would ''continue to fight for those ideas that I believe in, fight for the philosophy of smaller government, lowering taxes, strengthening the American family and reinvesting in our national defense.''

''Those are the ideas of the Republican Party as well,'' he added. ''I'm going to work to unite this party.''

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Quayle said he hoped Mr. Buchanan would not bolt to the Reform Party, saying, ''I don't think we ought to write anyone out of the Republican Party.''

Mr. Kristol said he thought time had already vindicated some of the views for which Mr. Quayle was once mocked, like his broadside against the plot line celebrating single motherhood on the television comedy ''Murphy Brown.''

''He was willing to take abuse for saying something that everyone now acknowledges was pretty important,'' Mr. Kristol said. ''In that respect, he will have a kind of intellectual and moral vindication.''

Mr. Kristol added, ''One of the odd things about politics is when you get out, you get treated more fairly.''

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A version of this article appears in print on September 28, 1999, on Page A00022 of the National edition with the headline: Quayle Bids Farewell to the Presidential Race, and, Effectively, an Era of His Career. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe